Korean Journal of Medical Ethics
The Korean Society for Medical Ethics
Article

간호학 학술지에 게재된 논문의 생명윤리기준 준수*

정인숙1, 엄영란2, 김금순3,*
Ihnsook JEONG1, Young Rhan UM2, Keum Soon KIM3,*
1부산대학교 간호대학
2순천향대학교 의과대학 간호학과
3서울대학교 간호대학
1College of Nursing, Pusan National University
2Department of Nursing, School of Medicine, Soonchunhyang University
3College of Nursing, Seoul National University
*교신저자 : 정인숙. 부산대학교 간호대학. 051-240-7763. jeongis@pusan.ac.kr

ⓒ Copyright 2008 The Korean Society for Medical Ethics. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Dec 31, 2008

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the presence/absence of ethical considerations in the published articles of nursing journals.

Methods: The ethical considerations of 331 articles published in six nursing journals having ethical considerations in their “instructions for authors” were examined. The following ethical considerations were reviewed: compliance with the Helsinki Declaration, approval of an independent ethical review committee (IRB), informed consent, protection of privacy and confidentiality, and the notification of conflicts of interest.

Results: Two hundred and seventy three of 331 (82.2%) articles had at least one ethical consideration, the most common of which was obtaining informed consent (80.1%). However, none of the articles included compliance with the Helsinki Declaration, and only 15.7% of the articles included obtaining written informed consent. The articles written in English showed more ethical considerations than those written in Korean in the aspects of IRB approval (p<0.0001) and obtaining written informed consent (p=0.050). For research methodology, qualitative studies had more ethical considerations than experimental studies or surveys in terms of protecting privacy and confidentiality (p=0.022) and obtaining written informed consent (p=0.011).

Conclusion: The ethical considerations in the articles published in the nursing journals examined did not fully reflect the ethical considerations listed in the journals’ instructions for authors. This study suggests that editors should pay greater attention in determining whether or not articles published in their journals follow the ethical considerations in their instructions for authors.

Keywords: 헬싱키선언; 윤리위원회; 충분한 설명에 의한 동의; 기밀보장; 이해상충
Keywords: Helsinki Declaration; Ethics committees; Informed consent; Confidentiality; Conflict of interest